Staying the course: Australia and maritime security in the South Pacific

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute today released a new report, Staying the course: Australia and maritime security in the South Pacific.

This report, authored by Sam Bateman and Anthony Bergin, argues that we should develop a comprehensive approach to replace Australia’s Pacific Patrol Boat Program.

Australia has supplied twenty-two boats to twelve island countries for maritime security. The vessels will start reaching the end of their service lives from 2018.  But Australia’s future plans for Pacific maritime aid remain opaque.

The paper argues that air surveillance for the islands should be mainly provided by civil aircraft working under a contractual arrangement managed centrally by a regional maritime coordination centre.

Coastal boats would be operated by the islands at a national level. Two or more might be required by those states with large offshore zones to respond to incidents. Larger vessels should be operated regionally. Their role would be to undertake patrols through the high seas and national offshore zones of the island countries. Three such vessels would be required to ensure that two are on task at any one time.

The total project costs for these boats would be about $300 million, below the approximately $550 million required to replace the existing twenty-two patrol boats with similar vessels.

The paper argues that a regional maritime coordination centre should be established for coordinating regional responses. Apart from Australia, the US, France, New Zealand, Japan and even China could assist in funding such a centre.

The paper finds no evidence of any significant progress towards addressing Australia’s future contribution to maritime security in the South Pacific.

The paper argues that Defence should be leading this work and not the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.